Spoons tinkled in cups as my team members nestled cozily on caramel-colored teak furniture, stirring their spicy chai tea, laughing, and bantering back and forth in our living room in New Delhi, India.
In the bathroom, I crouched on the floor with my arms wrapped around my knees, mind frenzied with irrational fears, emotions surging in response. Pointed accusations about things I’d said and how I’d said them, a sense that I was failing as a believer and church planter, and fears that everyone was fine but me.
It was a mental wrestling match: snuffing out a fiery accusation by deliberately trusting God with it; countering a cunning lie with an apt promise from the Word.
It was tempting to diagnose my experience, but it was not a time for that. It was a time for persevering in the Truth. Because whatever was going on, the solution was in God’s Word.
Like a suffering patient who swallows their medicine, I reached for Ephesians 2:4-6, quoting it aloud, letting it pour through my mind like disinfectant.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” NASB1995
God, your love for me is based on your mercy, not on anything I have done. In Christ, You gave me eternal life and elevated me to the highest place I could ever be—seated in the heavenly places in Christ! I am irrevocably safe and inaccessible to my enemies.
While I was entrenching myself in these blessed truths, a gasp of silence rushed into the bathroom, filling the space, filling my soul. My busy mind was stilled, decluttered, refocused. I stood up, sweeping my hair from my face, and returned to my guests in the living room. And enjoyed a cup of chai.
What did I experience? Only God knows for sure, but one possibility was a satanic attack. Scripture tells us three things about these. The battle against satanic forces is always on (Eph. 6:10-13). We must remain alert because our enemy seeks to destroy us (1 Peter 5:8). And if we resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7).
On earth, Jesus weathered the full spectrum of human experience, including epic battles against the devil’s schemes. One encounter, recorded in Luke 4:1-13, instructs me to think right in my own battles.
1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness
2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry.
3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.’”
5 And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
7 “Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”
8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’”
9 And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here;
10 “for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,’
11 and, ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’”
12 And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”
13 When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.
(NASB1995)
Jesus’ approach to spiritual warfare is simple and refreshing for me. Like David’s stone to defeat the giant, Jesus used one weapon—“It is written.” The results were devastating.
Can I do what Jesus did? When my mind races with irrational thoughts, whether from the world, the flesh, or the devil, are God’s promises enough for me? Quoting them, I feel small, clumsy, and ridiculous; like a child clomping around the house in her father’s shoes.
But standing on the promises is enough. Weakened, starving Jesus in the wilderness reduced Himself to my level and proved it. The power is in the promises.
In 2003, God led our family to serve Him in India. And to be tested.
One blazing hot evening in New Delhi, I prepared supper for my family, scurrying back and forth in our long galley kitchen. I was doing double duty, feeding my family and resisting unrelenting accusations and lies. Like the incessant car horns of the Delhi traffic outside, a cacophony of stupid thoughts and half-truths blared in my mind. On the marble countertop, my Bible lay open to the passage I was using to defend myself. I cannot now remember what passage it was.
Muttering the verses aloud, over the roar of the exhaust fan, my eyes fastened on the words on the page. Their stark permanence arrested my busy mind. These words are eternal and true. No one can change them. They were there before I was born. Whenever I open my Bible, they will still be there.
Amid the pungent smell of onions, kids squalling with each other, and sweat trickling down my back, a shift occurred in my faith. Instead of me clutching onto God’s Word, it was clutching onto me. The words were not true because I believed them. They were true whether or not I believed them. But when I stood firm, declaring them to be true, they became a sword in my right hand and a shield in my left.
No soldier in a regular combat is guaranteed victory, but we are. God’s Word promises that if I resist the devil, he will flee from me (James 4:5). It guarantees wisdom and soul-restoration when I read it (Psalm 19:7). It promises victory over fleshly desires when I walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16).
Dear one, whatever mental battle you are in, the solution is found in one place—the Word of God. May God give you that passage of Scripture on which you will stand and see the victory. From my kitchen in Canada where I now live, preparing quiet meals for my husband and me, I applaud you.
Note: Take a minute to leave a comment and share the portion of God’s Word you are standing on. It may be exactly the scripture someone else needs to hear.
Nancy and her husband have been serving as missionaries in Pakistan, India, and North America for over three decades. They currently live in Western Canada, where she enjoys writing and the great outdoors. Recently Nancy published her first book, WHOOSH Out of My Head and Into GOD’S.
Free Grace Women 
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